Advocates, incarcerated people urge five‑year moratorium on new jail and prison construction in Massachusetts

Dozens of incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated residents, health professionals and community organizers told the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight on May 12 that the state should pause building new jails and prisons and redirect funds into housing, mental‑health and reentry services.

The committee heard live testimony from people housed at MCI Framingham and MCI Shirley and from community groups and experts. Speakers repeatedly cited a proposed $50,000,000 plan to build a new women’s facility and called for a five‑year moratorium on new jail and prison construction while the state studies decarceration and community alternatives.

Those calls matter because, advocates said, Massachusetts’s prison population has dropped in recent years while per‑person incarceration costs remain high and many people behind bars have unmet mental‑health, addiction and housing needs that incarceration does not address.

“MCI Framingham is not the problem,” Julia Enright, identified in the hearing as testifying from the women’s prison, told the committee. “I would say we definitely do not need prisons.” Maria Thompson, who also testified…